Spontaneous lung metastases from an infrequently metastasizing fibrosarcoma and a more highly metastatic mammary carcinoma showed no increased capacity for generating primary tumors with greater metastatic potential when transplanted into either normal or whole-body-irradiated syngeneic mice for up to six isotransplant generations. Rather, successive generations varied in their metastatic behavior, tending towards decreasing metastatic efficiency. These data support the view that spontaneous metastases are determined more by random survival of intravasated tumor cells than by the selection of preexisting metastatic cell variants.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ando, K., Hunter, N., and Peters, L. J., 1979, Immunologically nonspecific enhancement of artificial lung metastases in tumor-bearing mice. Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy, 6, 151–156.
Bockman, R. S., and Myers, W. P. L., 1977, Cancer Invasion and Metastasis: Biologic Mechanism and Therapy, edited by S. B. Day, W. P. L. Myers, S. Stansby, S. Garattini and M. G. Lewis (New York: Raven Press), pp. 431–450.
Eccles, S. A., Heckford, S. E., and Alexander, P., 1980, Effect of cyclosporin A on the growth and spontaneous metastasis of syngeneic animal tumours. British Journal of Cancer, 42, 252–259.
Ewing, J., 1928, Neoplastic Diseases, a Treatise on Tumors. Third edition (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co.).
Fidler, I. J., and Kripke, M. L., 1977, Metastasis resulting from preexisting variant cells within a malignant tumor, Science, 197, 893–895.
Giavazzi, R., Alessandri, G., Spreafico, F., Garattini, S., and Mantovani, A., 1980, Metastatic capacity of tumor cells from spontaneous metastases transplanted murine tumours. British Journal of Cancer, 42, 462–472.
Hanna, N., and Fidler, I. J., 1980, Role of natural killer cells in the destruction of circulating tumour emboli. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 65, 801–809.
Herberman, R. B., and Holden, H. T., 1978, Natural cell-mediated immunity. Advances in Cancer Research, 27, 305–377.
Kripke, M. L., Gruys, E., and Fidler, I. J., 1978, Metastatic heterogeneity of cells from an ultraviolet light-induced murine fibrosarcoma of recent origin. Cancer Research, 38, 2962–2967.
Mantovani, A., Giavazzi, R., Alessandri, G., Spreafico, F., and Garattini, S., 1981, Characterization of tumor lines derived from spontaneous metastases of a transplanted murine sarcoma. European Journal of Cancer, 17, 71–76.
Milas, L., Hunter, N., Basic, I., Mason., K. Grdina, D., and Withers, H. R., 1975, Nonspecific immunotherapy of murine tumors with C. granulosum. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 54, 895–902.
Milas, L., and Peters, L. J., 1983, Conditioning of tissues for metastasis formation by radiation and cytotoxic drugs. Cancer Invasion and Metastasis: Biological and Therapeutic Aspects, edited by G. Nicolson and L. Milas (New York: Raven Press) (in the press).
Nicolson, G. L., 1978, Experimental tumor metastases. Characteristics and organ specificity. Bioscience, 28, 441–447.
Paget, S., 1889, The distribution of secondary growth in cancer of the breast. Lancet, 1, 571–573.
Peters, L. J., 1975, The natural history of metastasis of a syngeneic murine squamous carcinoma and the prognostic implications of primary tumour size and duration of growth. British Journal of Cancer, 32, 366–371.
Peters, L. J., McBride, W. H., Mason, K. A., and Milas, L., 1978, A role for T lymphocytes in tumor inhibition and enhancement caused by systemic administration of Corynebacterium parvum. Journal of the Reticuloendothelial Society, 24, 9–18.
Poste, G., and Fidler, I. J., 1980, The pathogenesis of cancer metastasis. Nature, (London), 283, 139–145.
Stackpole, C. W., 1981, Distant lung-colonizing and lung-metastasizing cell population in B16 mouse melanoma. Nature, (London), 289, 798–800.
Talmadge, J. E., and Fidler, I. J., 1982, Cancer metastasis is selective or random depending on the parent tumor population. Nature, (London), 297, 593–594.
Weiss, L., Holmes, J. C., and Ward, P. M., 1983, Do metastases arise from preexisting subpopulations of cancer cells? British Journal of Cancer, 47, 81–89.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Milas, L., Peters, L.J. & Ito, H. Spontaneous metastasis: random or selective?. Clin Exp Metast 1, 309–315 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00121193
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00121193